Petr Cigler is a truly impressive figure. A top-notch chemist
(molecular desien. nanotechnology , etc.) and naturalist of a revivalist
proficienc (precious few plants are unknown to him, precious few
mushrooms are insufficiently edible); a comooser who does not have the
appropriate "schooling." to write notes and actuall creates
music occasionally, yet whenever he does come us with a new piece, as
though by the way, it easily overshadows works by the majority of
music-school graduates of his generation (Cigler's oeuvre is
primarily characterised by a total absence of strained over-exertion);
for some time a very active horn player noted for his extremely
adventurous nature when it comes to exploring instrumental technisues
and all that which can no longer be termed technigue. By and large, his
straddling the worlds of science and music is remarkable indeed. I
simply cannot begin otherwise than by asking about the relationship
between Cigler the scientist and Cigler the composer.

The titles of your pieces, as well as the comments on them,
regularly reveal inspitution by the natural sciences. For me in person,
some of your compositions have the magic of Verne stories. At the sante
time, you are the last one who could be suspected of being wave when it
comes to approaching science, hence we can hardly pin on you the
accusation of applying the dusty props of hoar)! modernism, which so
liked to crystallise, ionise, or mutually "Mandelbratise" and
who knows what not. So what is it actually like in your case? When
composing, da you aim to come about some music through analog, of a
certain natural process or rather creak a musical metaphor of some
natural action or phenomenon? Or is it totally otherwise?

Cigler the composer does like to have a bit of a rest from Cigler
the scientist. But this doesn't anyhow change the fact that my
pieces do refer to some natural phenomena or directly make use of them.
You should, however, take it more as a reflection of my naturalistic
education and enthusiasm for nature (in a wider context, from botany to
physics) than as a wilful fixation on the inexhaustible source of a sort
of, inconceivable for other people, alchemistic inspiration. When I
think about it, my direct references most often contain links to
physical processes. They project into my scores either directly - in a
mathematically transformed form into pitches, their relationships or
anything else - or as an inspirational range or direct source of musical
material. Serving as an example of the first case is my recent
composition for ensemble Uber das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne,
whereby I imagined that a playing celesta or some string instruments
were flying by me and my ear just wondered what unexpected connections
may arise as a result of the Doppler shift in dependence on the speed of
their flight. I calculated the situation, and a skilful analyst may
easily detect it in the composition, yet it forms a small fragment of
the musical material. The rest is totally different notes, which have no
connection with it whatsoever and occurred to me independently. As for
the second case, you can perhaps remember how I once invited you around
so as to confirm or disprove whether someone else could hear the
resonance of the tiles in my bathroom on the frequencies identical with
those heard by me. We arrived at the conclusion that it was general, and
I eventually set up from the resonance pitches the basis of the
microtonal series for clarinet solo Qui.

I do remember the bathroom. Thor compositions quite often revolve
mound a certain acoustic phtenomenon that you, however, always aesthetic
in a way of your own, it is never "ready-made" music. Would
you be able to define your purely musical fascinations?

There are many things that Fascinate me in music, but you
won't find them in my pieces. Therefore, when composing I have no
choice but to seek new material, new techniques, which occasionally
evoke in me a stimulating, somewhat pioneering feeling. Specifically, I
have a steady penchant for more complex rhythmic patterns and their
layering in various ways and developing. by means of mathematical
progressions. I often work with tuning and retuning of instruments and
their groups; I would probably be hard pressed to eschew microtones and
deformations of tonal chords. I am interested in phenomena connected
with motoricity, automaticity of playing. I am not even going to refer
to indulgence in the sound timbre, since this is what perhaps every
composer has been interested in over the past at least one hundred
years.

Yesterday (5 May 2014), your new composition for the Berg Orchestra
was premiered, one that links up to your II-year-old piece Vzorky z
Mesice (Samples from the Moon). I think that it quite clearly revealed
how significant it was for you to play the horn with the then Agon
Orchestra, which specialised in, among other things, the American
post-minimalists and at the time was the home ensemble of the composer
Martin Smolka. Where have you advanced since then as a composer in
comparison with this background, what did you enterge from? what impact
did playing the horn have on you, an instrument that - perhaps it can be
said this way - is in more intimate contact with the acoustic reality
than many others?

You have discerned quite precisely that Daily Patterns is in a way
hindsight. At the time, I embraced minimalism, but in a harsher, more
dissonant and energetic form. I played with Agon occasionally and was a
great fan of the music they performed at concerts. 'When it comes
to the American minimalists, the composers around Bang on a Can or Ian
nis Xenakis, I perceived it as a musical buttress in the high
performance requirements I seek From musicians. I still cannot forbear
this seemingly unnecessary demandingness, since I want to experiment
together with the musicians, and I expect them to enjoy it. For years I
played the horn in a wind quintet and other ensembles, so I could
closely see and hear how individual instruments and their players
behave. Inevitably, this experience projects into my compositions; the
wind instrument players in particular encounter a host of challenges. As
for the brass instruments, I have become especially fond of consistent
application of different harmonic series, whereby the players perform
entire melodies using a single Fingering. To date, none my compositions
has dispensed with this technique, and it is highly unlikely that any
future ones will dispense with it either. But back to

the shifts in my musical language. You have made me think about it:
I have noticed that I have somewhat softened my sound; I now use fewer
aggressive dissonances and I also take greater heed of the technical
aspect of compositions. Almost all of my older pieces are at the border
or performability and technical feasibility. Today, I am a little bit
more pragmatic and strive to write compositions in such a manner that
would make it possible for them to be played by someone else besides the
instrumentalists I work with at the time. But I can't decide
whether this is to their benefit or not...

Another thing that virtually none of your pieces has lacked is some
theatrical or visual action. What impels you to it? Do youfeel the
necessity to transcend the limitations of "pure" music?

I enjoy actions on the stage, since they make it possible for me to
get the listeners into the moment of surprise, which can hardly be
provided to them by the music itself. It is a musical extension that can
be carried out by the musicians themselves, without actors and theatre.
A few examples: a shot from a pistol seen by everyone lifted and poised
has a far more powerful acoustic and emotive accent than any drumbeat,
as in Probudte se! (Wake Up!). Bedazzling the audience with intense
contre-jour light prevents them from noticing the ensemble, who during
the time when the music is played in the dark enter unobserved and whose
'sound suddenly emanates from a place different to where you would
expect it (Entropic Symphony). Lead cooled down to -200[degrees]C in
liquid nitrogen sounds like any other metal, yet when heated up its
sound transforms, with its metallic character gradually withering away
(Samples from the Moon).. As for the actual manipulation with sound, I
use, for instance, static distribution of players or their groups in
space so that, owing to their being at a sufficient distance, they begin
coming across as, acoustically distinguishable units. Then it is
possible to work with an instrumental ensemble in a similar manner to
that in a studio with electro-acoustic material - I have a soil of live
instrumental stereo (quadraphonic even) sound. In similar groupings,
rotations, various movements and spatial sound pulsations are available
as a new compositional parameter. 111 employ a motion action, it already
usually transcends mere work with the sound. Qui, a piece For solo
clarinet, is a kind of ritual, whereby the performer shifts between the
individual standpoints, thus "feeling out" the acoustic-space
in which he/she moves. In Echolocations For live percusionists, the
soloist moves synchronously or in the opposite direction to the
spatio-temporarily determined rotation of sounds, which are generated by
four statically distributed players. The audience sits geometrically
inside the whole process, thus being able to perceive the relationship
between the statically generated rotation and the physical messenger of
sound - the running soloist.

So we are back again to sound. What about electronic music, does it
allure you?

Yes, it does, but rather as a part of a composition for acoustic
instruments or voice, where I need different sounds. So Car, I have only
pondered a purely' electronic piece marginally. Not long ago, I was
urged to create a work of this type by a friend who's really into
electronic music. But I think he will have to wait for a while.

On the subject of technology, does the computer help you with
composing?

I compose with a pencil, writing on music paper. This, today almost
ancient, technique has proved For me to be far the best of all those
available. It forces me to write in the cleanest form possible - I
can't stand erasing, rewriting, deleting. I have to think more
about the chords and time, and then composing is much more interesting
than playing back notes in some program. So the computer only helps me
indirectly, by means of, for instance, an engraver that uses the
computer to create the neat score from my draft, and extracts the parts.
In the case of the composition Fokusace (Focusations) for solo
percussion, which I wrote for Tomas Ondrusek in the "Xenakis"
graphic notation, I long ruminated over whether to write the final score
by hand or somehow digitally. It was eventually resolved by means of MS
Excel, in which I worked out a simple method of notation of little balls
as a formalised type of chart. And MS Excel also helps me with
compositions that contain some mathematically expressible structure
relating to, say, calculation [degrees]land relations between pitches.
It has served well for checking various microtonal transpositions, the
development of rhythmic patterns or determining the durations of
sections I want to have in certain ratios.

What role is then played by some type of constructivist
"preparation" in your compositions? As a listener, I would
guess that your pieces have a sort of pre-prepared skeleton which you
rather arbitrarily flesh out...

When I start a composition, it is of the utmost importance to
clarify two things: what material to use and, above all, what the
composition will look like as a whole. By this I mean its proportions,
macro-form and inner structure, duration, the feeling it evokes in me or
the feeling I want to get close to. As for the selection of the actual
material, it involves dusting off old and processing new notes; I need
melodies, sounds, chords, rhythms and mathematical structures of varying
degrees of sophistication. I draw up a sketch and get down to detailed
composing and instrumentation. A large quantity of ideas only enter a
composition while I am writing, they simply emerge and grow into the
score. Another important role is played by errors, of which I
inadvertently make a lot. But. before I erase or correct them, I try to
gauge whether they might ultimately sound better than my original
conception. Sometimes this is the case and I am enraptured. After all,
quite a lot of my material has its origin in slips, out-of-tune playing
and all kinds of howling. I only want the musicians to deliver it in a
defined form.

If I understand your scientific work correctly, it straddles
discovery and invention. When composing, do you sometimes experience
thefeeling that ideas - in the widest sense of the word - are basically
divided into discoveries and inventions? I know it difficult to define
... But the border between discovery and invention in today's
natural sciences too is not entirely clear-cut. or is it?

Not only have I experienced that feeling but, as you describe it,
from my viewpoint it is the practical reality of every creation. In
science, some connections virtually fall into our lap occasionally, for
instance, as a by-product of a seemingly more significant project. We
discover new principles, get to know more about how nature works. But we
have to approach some problems like engineers from the very beginning.
We design and build a functional system, in my case, one made out of
atoms and ions. Within this parallel, I could view composition as a sort
of gradual inventing and testing out of new musical principles and
relations. But I would not get far without minor and greater
discoveries, which occur somewhat unexpectedly and, sometimes, almost
expectedly. I wouldn't, however, term these discoveries as ideas,
they are rather observations that spring up uncertainly - on the basis
of observation or simple coincidence. From an unusual colour in the
instrumentation or rhythm, which Functions unexpectedly not only in the
context of a particular composition but also in the subconscious, up to,
say, harmony resulting from unintentional leaning on the keyboard. They
mean a lot to me and often serve as the pillar when seeking musical
material. On the other hand, discoveries/observations seldom appear out
of nowhere, without one having explored something. I think that owing
precisely to the increased attention necessary for intercepting them -
since they crop up unexpectedly - composing cannot be reduced to its
basal technological or associative substance, thus the composer docs not
only draw upon his professional experience and basic ideas. Carrying out
and including minor discoveries/observations results in composing going
beyond the engineering routine, beyond the production of music for a
certain Function that is known or given in advance.

What are your plans for your future as a composer and scientist?
What have you in store for us?

My scientific future to a great extent depends on what grants I
succeed in obtaining this year. Sometimes I am shocked by how similar
this is to the sphere of music. Even though my financial security does
not depend on my music production., I have found out that the project
style of today's culture can markedly influence that which I write.
Last year, for instance, I promised a piece for the Moens ensemble, yet
its being performed was conditioned on some sort of grant. And the grant
was only allotted for this year, hence I will write it in the summer and
it will be premiered in the autumn. As regards the plans For the next
few years, rm really looking forward to the piano trio commissioned from
me by the Dresden-based ensemble Elole Klaviertrio for the Ostrava Days
2015 festival, and I will also be composing an opera for the New Opera
Days Ostrava 2016 festival.

Petr Cigler (b. 1978), chemist and composer At the present time, he
heads the Synthetic Nanochemistry team at the Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic, within which he researches into new therapeutics and
diagnostic methods for medicine. As a horn player, he has premiered
numerous pieces Czech and foreign composers and in the previous decade
of the 21st century he signyicantly participated in the activities of
the Czech.contemporary composed music scene. He is a self-taught
composer. Cigler's pieces have been performed at or commissioned
for Ostrava Days, the Exposition of New Music, Prague Spring and many
other festivals. His composition Probate se! (Wake Up!). was featured on
a CD-sampler of the magazine His Voia (4/2007), Entropic Symphony was
released on the Ostrava Days 2on festival CD.

COPYRIGHT 2014 Czech Music Information
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.